"Look Ma - I'm a serious journalist!" aka no stand

Post by **weemadando** » 2005-09-18 08:13pm

What the hell happened to journalistic standards, I mean, they've always been somewhat "slim", but now they seem non-existant. Every day I see unfounded rumour-mongering, cut and paste journalism, shittily hidden editorialising...

Its disturbing, especially as the vast majority of morons don't realise this is happening.

Last night Sarah and I came within moments of destroying our television when that smug fuck Peter Harvey's "reporting" on petrol prices at the end of Sixty Minutes (didn't actually watch the whole show thank god, because this was bad enough). It more closely resembled a student film done horribly in documentary style by an anarchistic right-wing Michael Moore wannabe. There was not a single fact, piece of information or anything else - it was just Peter Harvey's fucking voice and cat-arsed face piecing together rumours and urban legend to try and build a story out of nothing. And then, in a shocking reveal - there was a letter written to the show saying the exact same thing - this was EVIDENCE apparently, despite the fact that no details about its author were given, at all.

It was disgusting and horrific and bore no resemblance at all to the journalism that Sixty Minutes used to present.

Why is it that "news" and "current affairs" are now little more than a circus of cliches, soundbites and fear-mongering?

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2005-09-18 08:25pm

Corporate ownership and the 24 hour news cycle are the two main factors.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2005-09-18 08:44pm

What the hell happened to journalistic standards

They've remained relatively unchanged for a couple centuries, at least.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2005-09-18 09:00pm

SPOOFE wrote:
What the hell happened to journalistic standards
They've remained relatively unchanged for a couple centuries, at least.

Not entirely, the very worst is fueled and promoted by the two factors I mentioned above.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2005-09-18 10:06pm

Actually, I would argue that, in Ye Olden Golden days (oh, the 1800s), the fact that news WASN'T so prevalent made it even MORE cutthroat.

And they were always owned by corporate greed. Ever heard of William Randolph Hearst?

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2005-09-19 02:58pm

SPOOFE wrote:Actually, I would argue that, in Ye Olden Golden days (oh, the 1800s), the fact that news WASN'T so prevalent made it even MORE cutthroat.

And they were always owned by corporate greed. Ever heard of William Randolph Hearst?

I'm not talking about corporate greed, I'm talking about corporate ownership. ABC doesnt say shit about Disney because they own them, Fox doesnt report on anything that Sky gets up to, CNN is nice about AOL...news has become part of a corporate portfolio...which is different to simple greed.

Hearst and Pulitzer were both interested in sensationalism, but both were patriarchs, they did not answer to a board about what impact they were having on the parent company. Or of refusing to report a given item due to impact on other areas of the corporate entity.

There were similar concerns in the past but they were limited to the discrete entity of the news outlet itself, rather than to the interests of a range of affiliated entities. It also serves to increase the emphasis on sensationalism as most executives in news now have up to 50% of their pay based on performance...they are more answerable at all levels to the bottom line.

Then we have the issue of the 24 hour news cycle accelerating the entire proccess and making people fight to scoop the competition by seconds. This reduces accuracy as spending even a minute on verification can mean you get beaten to the scoop...and this can cause a chain of misinformation such as that caused in the 2000 election by FOX News with their report of Bush winning or the mistaken announcment by a canadian news outlet that Lucien Bouchard had died.

Taking the two together they impact badly on journalism, increasing the quantity and the spread of shoddy journalism and increasing the amount of sensationalism with a great emphasis on the idea of "If it Bleeds, it leads"

mr friendly guy · Post by **mr friendly guy** » 2005-09-19 04:07pm

Australian Sixty minutes lost its integrity long ago, ever since one third of the stories now have to be about a celebrity who really should go in an entertainment show instead of a current affairs show.